Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1: Containing Sixteen Experimental Investigations from the Harvard Psychological Laboratory.
Science
Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1: Containing Sixteen Experimental Investigations from the Harvard Psychological Laboratory.
Psychology, Experimental
The overestimation, however, is of no great significance, for data
will be introduced a little later which show definitely that the
underestimation or overestimation of a given standard is determined,
among other factors, by the intensity of the stimulation employed. The
apparently anomalous results obtained in the early investigations are
in part probably explicable on this basis.
As regards the results of _practice_, the data obtained from the two
subjects on whom the greatest number of tests was made (_Hs_ and _Sh_)
is sufficiently explicit. The errors for each successive group of 25
series for these two subjects are given in Table III.
TABLE III.
_ST_ = 5.0 SECONDS.
SUBJECT _Hs_. SUBJECT _Sh_.
CT (1) (2) (3) (4) (1) (2) (3) (4)
4. 2.5 2.5 1.5 2.5 0. .5 0. .5
4.5 6.0 3.0 3.5 7.0 5.0 3.5 2.0 .5
5. 14.0 11.0 11.0 11.0 8.5 11.5 4.0 7.0
5.5 11.5 11.5 6.0 12.5 11.0 16.0 14.0 15.0
6. 12.0 9.0 6.5 6.0 3.5 2.0 1.5 1.0
6.5 4.0 3.5 4.0 3.5 4.0 .5 0. 0.
No influence arising from practice is discoverable from this table,
and we may safely conclude that this hypothetical factor may be
disregarded, although among the experimenters on auditory time
Mehner[13] thought results gotten without a maximum of practice are
worthless, while Meumann[14] thinks that unpracticed and hence
unsophisticated subjects are most apt to give unbiased results, as
with more experience they tend to fall into ruts and exaggerate their
mistakes. The only stipulation we feel it necessary to make in this
connection is that the subject be given enough preliminary tests to
make him thoroughly familiar with the conditions of the experiment.
[13] _op. cit._, S. 558, S. 595.
[14] _op. cit._ (II.), S. 284.
2. The second group of experiments introduced the factor of a
difference between the stimulation marking the end of an interval and
that marking the beginning, in the form of a change in locality
stimulated, from one finger to the other, either on the same hand or
on the other hand. Two classes of series were given, in one of which
the change was introduced in the standard interval, and in the other
class in the compared interval.
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